Mask Upon Mask
by Joker88
Summary: Commissioner Gordon finds Batman's true identity. And now the Joker's come to call. Too bad Batsy seems to be dead, someone's got to pay for the death of Gotham's Dark Knight. With Mask upon mask who can anyone trust? Read and review please.
1. Chapter 1

_**Yeah, I know, I was disappointed too. I was trying to write some more Joker Creeps, but it seems my absolutely horrifying imagination needed a break. And I had to write batman at some point, after all they are Batman's movies. Anyway, Bale did a good job in the two movies, I thought I should butcher his role just as much as I have the Joker's. Oh, I mean you can certainly expect the Joker in later chapters, if there is a later chapter...**_

Yeas I know how short this is...sorry.

* * *

The press was going wild out there. They gathered outside the ambulance as it pulled up to the hospital doors.

Silently and efficiently the paramedics unhooked the gurney from the vehicle and unloaded it from the truck. The press fell silent for a moment as they saw Batman for the first time.

Unmoving. Unseeing. Unspeaking.

And then with a roar of noise, the questions began, shouted across the lot, as the reporters vied for the doctors and Gordon's attention.

"Is he alive?" " What happened?" "Will you be taking him into custody if he survives?" "Has his identity been revealed?" "Why does he need medical attention?" "Is he going to die?"

Gordon pushed through the crowd with practiced ease. The paramedics however looked nervous and edgy.

"Goddammit! Everyone back away!" The Commissioner pushed the journalists away and smashed through the doors of the hospital, following the metal gurney. _Jesus. If he dies... Gotham dies with him._

Batman lay still, three knife wounds and a fall from a sixteen story building didn't bode well for the caped crusader.

It seemed impossible that Batman was in this position. He was supposed to be invincible, untouchable. Gordan had fooled himself into thinking that it might last. That Batman had supernatural powers.

"How do we get this shit off?" The doctors were struggling with the Batsuit, pulling it, trying to cut through the tough fabric.

"Get him to room seventeen-A. Get a surgeon and an analyst." A man in dark blue scrubs was shouting orders, grabbing charts and sending other doctors scrabbling through the hallways.

"Commissioner, you're going to have to wait in the waiting room. I want some Kevlar for my surgeons. I don't care how good this guy is. If he wakes up and hurts my doctors, I'm holding you responsible."

"Why?" Gordon asked, surprised.

"I don't trust this guy. As far as I'm concerned, he's a cop killer and a criminal. Not to mention what I can say about his mental status."

"Right..."

"So you are going to have to wait in the lobby. See if you can contact his... Damn. Well, just wait in the lobby."

Gordon nodded, "Fine, Dr... Golding." He said peering at the doctor's identification tag.

Walking back to the lobby he felt strange, weak. Batman was going to die... If he wasn't already dead. He sat in one of the stiff hospital chairs, his arms braced on his knees and holding his head. It the black Knight died, the city would slip back into the dirty criminal underworld that It had been five years ago. Unable to take the tension any longer he phoned his wife and kids, deriving a little comfort from his sons chirping voice.

Back in his chair he leaned his head against the wall and prayed that Batman would survive the night.

At last when he was just about to fall into slumber, Dr. Golding stepped into the lobby covered in blood and looking weary. The Doctor glanced around the waiting room and his gaze rested on the Commissioner.

"We think he's stable. But we can't be sure, I can hardly hook a heart monitor up to a Kevlar suit."

Gordon nodded, a little eased.

"We think it can be taken off from the neck down but his mask is in the way. We don't know what to do."

Gordon nodded again, unsure of what the doctor was telling him.

Golding took a deep breath. "I need you to take the costume off. None of my doctors want to know who Batman is, that knowledge is a dangerous thing in times like these. We want you to take the mask off, check for head injuries, unclip the suit, and put the mask back on."

Gordon sighed and nodded wearily. He should have expected this. Dr. Golding patted him on the back gratefully. "Thanks. The neckline is charged, so you'll have to wear these." He held out a pair of thick rubber gloves.

Gordon took them and stood, his head spinning a little from exhaustion. He made his way back to room 17 A. Steeling himself and taking a deep breath he entered the room.

Batman lay surrounded by complicated machinery, all turned off. His black suit had a stark contrast to the white sheet and walls.

No wonder he didn't like hospitals, no way for him to slip into a shadow here.

Gordon shook his head and walked carefully over to the dark figure on the bed. He peered down at the man on the bed and took yet another wavering breath.

The figure lay still, maybe he was dead already. _Well, there's only one way to find out._ Gordon closed the hospital curtain, and a bit paranoid, he covered the windows and checked for security cameras. Finding nothing he pulled on the gloves and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous tick.

Carefully The commissioner forced his fingers into the crack where cowl met the breast plate and pulled.

Gordon stumbled backwards as the hood came away smoothly. He had been expecting some kind of resistance.

He peeled back the mask, trying not to jostle the silent figure too much. The hood slipped off, and Gordon stared at batman's true identity.

A face from the tabloids lay on the bed, black paint was smeared on his eyelids and blood coated his forehead and bruised cheek, yet Gordon knew who it was.

The one man who he would never have expected. The one man who Gordon had scoffed and told Jokes about. The one who had earned scorn from the highest society for his drunken escapades and various mistresses.

It was Bruce Wayne.

Gordon felt his mouth work for a few minutes, speechless he could only stare. After a few minutes he forced a breath. Expelling air, he said the one thing that came to mind.

"Shit."

* * *

_**I'm telling you when I was finished I was like... What? I mean nothing scary, gruesome, creepy or whatever it is people like in my stories. It's just... Batman... on a bed... in a hospital... I mean what the hell? So yeah. Reviews would be nice... I wrote the second chapter for Jester's court, but then I found out just how much I could suck as a writer, and I went all depressed and blamed Batman for some reason. So Batman gets to be tortured some more. Yeah... **_

_**Jester's Court pretty much sucks balls.**_

_**REVIEW!!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Okay... really slow chapter ahead, but it needed to be written. I promise they'll get longer. I just need to get to a point where I feel comfortable enough. And I've never written Batman before, or Gordon, or Alfred, or Lucius...**_

Gordon stood staring at the man who had protected him and his family again and again and again. The man who faced countless evil terrors.

But also the man who told tasteless jokes at charities, bought everything in site. Had almost a dozen models on his arm at one time.

It couldn't be the same person. Couldn't be playboy and crime fighter at the same time. The man burned down his own mansion for Christ sake.

_What about Rachel Dawes, they were close... Close enough for Bruce Wayne to jump out a window for her?_

But Wayne wouldn't risk his own life, he had hidden in a panic room when the Joker had come to call. He had witnesses for that.

_What if it wasn't a panic room? _

It could have been a secret passage to wherever he kept his suit. After all no one had gone with him. But still to reconcile a man such as Wayne to an unstoppable force such as Batman? It was folly, impossible. Yet the evidence lay before him. That suit was no fancy dress for a party, those bruises were real. Those knife wounds were not going to disappear.

Suddenly his knees felt weak, he sat down.

He could remember his first encounter with the billionaire playboy. His parents had just been shot in front of his eyes, he was small, scared, hanging onto his father's coat like a life-line. Just a little boy in an uncomfortable suit, trying not to cry.

Gordon had cried that night, all of Gotham had wept for the loss. He had gone to the funeral, seen the boy standing by his guardian, the butler, and the young child hadn't shed a single tear. There was sadness in his face, unbearable loss. And anger, lots of anger.

When a the boy came back from college, his eyes empty, he had still been a good man, sober, quiet but still angry. Gordon had seen that at Chill's court case. The raw rage at the ratty man standing in the corner recounting his sins. And just as suddenly as he'd come home, the young man left, just after Chill got released and murdered.

Bruce Wayne disappeared from the face of the earth. Gordon had spent a long time looking for him. Even suggested combing the river. And for seven years Gordon had assumed that Bruce Wayne had suicided, even Wayne enterprises agreed. They declared him dead.

And then he came back. Changed. He flirted with every woman that walked. Bought any restaurants or hotels that resisted his ridiculous escapades. And ignored the fact that Gotham was collapsing around him. But he was no longer angry, he was no longer anything.

And with Bruce Wayne came Batman. And crime dropped with the fall of the Falcone family.

Gordon stared at the man on the hospital bed. He had to get the suit off. And he did so in silence, wincing at every bruise that he uncovered, every cut and crudely stitched wound.

The man's whole body seemed to be a patchwork doll, muscled, beaten up and broken. When he was finished, he carefully placed the mask back onto Batman's face and left to call the doctors.

He didn't check to see if Bruce Wayne was still alive.

Back in the waiting room with a cup of coffee in one hand, Gordon took a shaky breath. He wanted so badly to forget what he had just seen. How could he trust Batman when he knew what kind of person he masqueraded as in the day. Who Batman really? A playboy out for kicks or Avenger, protecting himself and those close to him. Who was Bruce Wayne for that matter? Just another mask? How many will have to be pulled away?

He took a sip of the tepid coffee and winced at the foul taste. God, he needed some sleep. Some time to just _think_.

He stared up at the TV above the chairs. It was showing an advert for toothpaste. The bright colors flashed in his vision, a falsely cheery voice shouting how DentriPaste was used by seventy five percent of Gotham's finest dentists.

The picture abruptly changed to show a young woman in her late twenties, early thirties standing outside the hospital.

"Batman, the city's so called 'Guardian Angel', who sudden;y turned to harbinger of death four weeks ago, following the killings of four cops and the kidnapping of Commissioner Gordon's family, has been brought into the Lakeshore Medical Center in dire need of surgical help. No reports yet on the Batman's condition but the following footage was captured on the ambulances arrival."

The next clip was of Gordon himself pushing through the crowd of journalists, forging a way for the gurney which had the motionless body of Batman upon it.

The camera flicked back to the news agent. "His medical status remains a mystery and erratic reports have come confirming the death of the city's most wanted criminal. One has to wonder though, as the Commissioner was on sight at the scene, 'How was Batman injured?' Many theories have developed in the past hour on a revenge attempt or self defense on Commissioner Gordon's part. The Commissioner has yet to exit the Lakeshore Medical and give us a statement. We'll keep you updated as the story unfolds."

The woman disappeared from the screen again and an aging man appeared at an anchors desk. A blue screen behind him confirmed the channel as Mass News.

"In other news the Joker remains at large, having escaped from Arkham not four days ago. Bruce Wayne is funding a Gala for Wayne Enterprises. He plans to return to his home, Wayne Manor with a homecoming party next week. Andrew Reeves, a missing person of three months was sighted yesterday at the market in Downtown Gotham, any news on his disappearance would be helpful to investigators."

Gordon finished his coffee, and though about what a mess he had made of everything. Instead of simplifying things, revealing Batman's identity just made everything more complicated.

Who knew? Nobody had disappeared with him. He could be using prototypes from his company. He could be working alone, no one would know. Damn.

Rachel probably knew, but she was dead. Of course if Batman were dead, none of this would matter. Gordon groaned and put his head back into his hands. He was way in over his head. Batman had to escape. That much was obvious. But how to do it?

He agonized for a few minutes. He probably had a few days at the most. If Wayne lived that long. Gordon would be forced to arrest him and charge him with murder, kidnapping, theft, disturbance of the peace, and causing public unrest. Not to mention all the lawsuits filed against him for damaged property.

Gordon went back to batman's room and an odd sight met his eyes, two doctors were crowded around Batman's bed, two journalists photographing him, one was leaning over, ready to pull the mask off.

They all stared guiltily up at Gordon as he entered. He pointed at the door wordlessly. They left, but Gordon wasn't quite finished. With an easy movement he snatched the camera's off the journalists' necks.

"Hey!" cried one indignantly, trying to grab the swinging equipment. He held it out of their reach.

"Evidence." He said quietly holding their gazes. Mattering curses and trowing dark glances at the Commissioner the reporters exited. The doctors fled before Gordon could get their names. He was left with Batman.

The heart moniter was giving off a steady beep. So he was alive.

He didn't look it. His skin was a sickly white and his wounds were growing into a vivid purple. The Doctors had but his arm into a cast and his cuts had been sew up professionally.

All in all he looked terrible.

Gordon pulled the curtains closed again and pulled Batman's mask off again. The shock of recognition wasn't so bad when Bruce Wayne didn't have his suit on. Gordon slapped him lightly on the cheek. When this bore no response, Gordon shook the man, it was hard trying to find an area that had not been marred my bruises.

_Bruce was cold. Far too cold. And something was jarring him. Any movement at all was agonizing, but he forced his heavy eyelids open. _

_There was a bright light above him, but It was quickly obscured by something. A face. A familiar face. It looked down at him, worried._

"Mr. Wayne?"

_Oh, even sound hurt. He squinted up. His mask wasn't on. He must have gotten sick or mugged or whatever happens to people when they aren't being Batman._

"Commissioner Gordon?"

_The face smiled in relief. _"You've been hurt. You're in a hospital and we need to get you out."

"Out? But I just got here... I think. What's the rush?"

_Pain is fading, that's good. What happened? Why is Gordon here? _

"You don't remember do you?" Gordon's smile was fading.

"Remember what?" Bruce tried to find his watch. It was gone. His whole arm was bare. Revealing the purplish blue bruises. "Oh, you want to know about these? I was-"

"Mr. Wayne, I know who you are."

Bruce stopped short his mind racing. "What?"

"Batman?"

_Oh... Shit._

"Can I have my phone call?"

_**Okay yeah, the last line was not meant to mirror the Joker in anyway at all... So... Yeah. That's it for now. I know how slow this went. The next chappie will probably have Fox, Alfred, and maybe the Joker... Yeahhhh, please don't hate me if I got this chapter wrong.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Okay short but what the hell,I had to go to a party. Gods, I hate short chapters, sorry faithful readers...  
**_

* * *

_"Can I have my phone call?"_

Gordon shivered in the cold room and rubbed his arms. "Look Mr. Wayne, I'm not going to arrest you. But I think I do deserve some sort of explanation."

Bruce sat up, his expression relieved and puzzled.

"What do I need to explain?"

"For one, what are you doing in a black suit climbing buildings at night and doing karate chops on drug dealers." He paused. "And what the hell you're going to do to get out of here."

Bruce looked up at the ceiling. "Well the first is a _long _story. And to answer your second I can just walk out."

"Not really, Bruce Wayne in a Narrows hospital looking like someone's punching bag? Plus they have cameras out there. Lots of them. I caught two journalists trying to take your mask off."

Bruce looked up hopelessly. "Back door?"

"Uh, they've surrounded the hospital, and the police have good reason to let them in here, or at least they think they do. Mr. Wayne, I'm afraid we are going to be here a long time."

"So you're not going to arrest me?"

"Not at the moment, don't change the subject. I want to know."

Bruce sighed and lay back down, his ribs aching. "What do you want to know first."

Gordon blinked, his mind racing, there were so many questions that he needed to ask, so many that he wanted answered. "Let's start off simple."

Bruce grinned and nodded, stretching his arms. Gordon took a deep breath.

"Okay... Why bats?"

* * *

_Meanwhile a figure in a trench coat on the other side of town stopped by a store looking at the many television screens that were showing the same story. The Joker cackled madly._

* * *

Gordon rubbed his eyes.

"Hold on a second. So crane wasn't the one who organized the fear toxin? It was Raz?"

"Yes."

"So where did you get the suit and the car?"

"I'm really not going to answer that truthfully."

Gordon reviewed everything he had been told. "That's quite the story Mr. Wayne. And here I was thinking you'd wandered off from a fancy dress party."

"Can I get a change of clothes?" Bruce staggered out of the bed.

The Commissioner was shaken out of his reverie. "Oh yes, of course, you must be freezing. Put your mask back on in case anyone looks in."

Bruce grimaced and pulled on the mask, Gordon shivered, just seeing that weirdly shaped helmet on someone without the suit gave him the shivers.

Gordon went in search of clothes.

* * *

The hospital was a maze of hallways, each bleeding into the next with a lifeblood of doctors, nurses and patients. Here and there reporters dotted the crossings taking notes getting coffee and rushing up to every doctor who wore scrubs and asking how batman was.

Every know and then Gordon would be forced to comment on batman's condition and he gave a vague picture of a coma or death.

The story fit together now, the little pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite mesh were molding into each other. But Bruce Wayne couldn't have done everything himself, he must have an accomplice, someone who got his equipment, organized his life as Bruce Wayne, the billionaire airhead. He was protecting someone. Gordon would need help if he was going to get Batman out of the hospital, not in a body bag.

Bruce seemed healthy enough but one didn't just walk out of a fall from a sixteen story building, not to mention the knives involved. Bruce would have to be watched carefully for a few days. The fall could have addled his brains or worse, cause internal bleeding. Wayne definitely had at least four broken ribs, it was a miracle one hadn't punctured anything important.

Bruce didn't have very many options left however casual he seemed. He was trapped in a hospital, and Gordon wasn't going to arrest him for murders that he hadn't committed.

God, what a nightmare.

Aha, scrubs, finally. Gordon snatched them up and began walking back, trying to make his way to Bruce's room. A blue uniform stopped him. He looked up astonished to see Randall Hughes standing in front of him. Randal was a good cop, one of the few that hadn't been corrupted by Falcone's reign over Gotham. Gordon liked him as a cop he could trust without reserve.

"Hey, can we talk later?" Gordon asked trying to dodge around the officer.

Hughes stood his ground, "Hold on a second, Commissioner, I think someone else should handle this one."

Shocked Gordon stopped and looked at the other man. "What? Why?"

"Look I've called the ICC. I don't believe you can judge the situation dispassionately."

Gordon just stared at him. Randall blushed and looked at his feet. "The man kidnapped your _family._ I don't want him dead before we can snap him in jail. The judge agrees he's put a restraining order on you. You're not allowed within two hundred steps of Batman."

Gordon closed his eyes. Oh, just when he thought things couldn't get any worse. "Look, what am I going to do? Strangle him with his sheets? "

Hughes turned even redder but his gaze was steady. "I don't know. Would you?"

* * *

Bruce was stretching in the corner, he looked ridiculous with his cowl and no suit. He was going mad in this tiny room. He wanted to be out, be gone, be free.

The door clicked open and Bruce stood up, a welcome on his lips, it faded as he saw who it was.

"Thought I'd... drop by." The Joker stood in the doorway, his makeup as messy and horrifying as ever. "I brought you flowers."

* * *

_**Yeah short but what the hell, I have to go now.**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**I love my reviewers... so much. I love you guys. Seriously. I'm having a Bromance moment here. All of you, go buy yourselves a drink and pat yourself on the back. I'm going to start on the new chapter.**_

Bruce dropped into a half crouch and scanned the room for anything he could use as a weapon.

"How did you get in here?"

The Joker laughed and made his way over to a chair. He flopped down and put a drooping purple hat onto the bed.

"I missed you, locked away in that nasty little place."

Bruce stopped, his curiosity overcoming the strange situation. "How did you break out?"

The Joker laughed and lifted his feet up. "They just can't contain my... explosive character."

Bruce _nearly_ smiled, but turned it into a grimace.

The Joker laughed again, he laced his fingers behind his head. "You really are too much fun. I thought that you'd found someone else to play with tonight."

Bruce walked carefully around the room, trying to put as much furniture between the Joker and himself as possible.

"You really ought to take a vacation once in a while. Go to a party, meet some girls." He wasn't watching Bruce but studying his paint smeared fingers.

"I could say the same about you."

There was a choking sound and Bruce whipped up startled. The Joker's giggle was unnerving.

"I'm sorry about your girlfriend, for shame I really did get the addresses mixed up."

Bruce growled, his had clenching unconsciously on the IV pole, his knuckles turning white. _Where is Gordon when you need him?_

"Really, I was all excited for Harvey's death. I thought bringing you low was fun but I think Dent was my masterpiece. Rebecca or Roberta-"

"Rachel."Bruce interrupted quietly

"Right, her, she was a fine woman, the way she just _dangled_ you in front of each other. I mean that was just _cruel._"

Bruce threw the metal pole at The Joker with a howl of rage.

The Joker casually reached up and caught the pole, his eyes still on his hands. "You don't seem very sick to me. Are we feeling feisty today?

Batman looked around for something else to throw.

"But all this is beside the point, what I want to know is how you're going to get out of here."

"I'm going to trust you?" There was a medical book on one of the shelves, Bruce reached up and grabbed it. He chucked it at the Joker, who merely deflected it with a casual flick of the IV pole.

"Well, that all depends on what you trust me with. Trust is a tricky word." He scratched his ear.

Gordon sighed down at his hands in frustration, they had just about locked him in a room with guards. He could murder Randall Hughes.

As much as he hated to admit it, good fools were still fools. Why did all the villains and corrupt cops have to be the smart ones.

God Dammit he was the police commissioner for Christ sakes, he could get out of this, tweak a few noses, nod at certain people, maybe even raise a paycheck.

He ground his hands into his eyes. Doing that would go against everything he stood for. But _Batman_ was in the hospital. _Batman_ is helpless, surrounded by doctors and nurses but still ultimately defenseless. What Gordon needed right now was some blue prints, a cigarette and some _space_. The room was so stuffy and crowded, he was late to make a statement to the press, he was being detained by his own men, and he had to sneak a billionaire crime-fighter out of a hospital with all his limbs and preferably without handcuffs.

"Hey can I get a cup of coffee?"

"You wanna drink the piss they serve here?" Randall asked, a smile on his twitching face. Hughes knew what would happen to him back at the office. Gordon would have him do Narrows duty for a week for putting him in this humiliating position.

Gordon grimaced but nodded, he could really use some caffeine no matter how unpleasant it would be.

Randall opened his mouth and looked as if he wanted to mutter an apology but after a moment he shook his head and walked out of the room, closing it behind him with a soft click.

He stretched his legs, wincing as his stiff neck cracked explosively.

The other guard looked around and smiled at Gordon's obvious discomfort. He turned away again to watch the TV. Outside the hospital doors people were massing together to protest Batman's presence in Gotham's hospital. Most wanted him in the county jail, and a few wanted him out of police custody. It reminded Gordon of the peasants forming an angry mob, ready to storm the castle and find the monster. It was close, Gotham citizens forming an angry mob to storm the hospital and find Batman.

"You know, Officer Hughes hasn't been in the force long." Gordon was shaken out of his thoughts to look at his remaining guard who was still staring at the television screen, his lips barely moving.

"He hasn't... lost friends to the job." The Commissioner stared at him, he didn't know why they were having a conversation about Randall.

"And that... madman took your family." Said the guard, still staring at the screen.

_Ah, of course, I was forgetting that Batman was a cop-killer to most on the force._

The guard smiled slightly, talking faster now that he saw that Gordon had caught on. "You know i'm very clumsy this time of the year, and tired. It'd be easy to trip over that chair right there, and it's ridiculous how you could take my gun from my holster and go check up on our 'dangerous criminal'. It's not your fault if he goes for your throat. Call it... self defense."

Gordon nodded, old cops were touchy about the friends that got killed in the line of duty, and after years of watching killers get away from justice it wasn't uncommon for a suspect to go missing before their trial. And finally Gordon had a plan.

The guard, officer Murphy as his badge claimed, went crashing to the floor. Gordon slid out of his chair and fluidly tugged the small handgun out of the helpful officer's holster.

The guard braced himself against the floor and winked conspiratorially at Gordon.

The Commissioner nodded curtly at him and slid out of the door.

He made his way halfway through the hallway before he heard footsteps. He dodged left into a hospital room. Two men were lying side by side, each with various tubes and needles sticking out of them.

Even though Gordon felt angry at Officer Murphy for betraying the law, a traitorous part of his brain was actually enjoying the action. He had seen plenty of gunfire in his day, it wasn't easy, but there was a difference in defending the city and taking offensive action to help people.

The footsteps drew closer, it was Randall balancing two coffee cups in one hand and checking his phone in the other.

Gordon quickly grabbed one of the visiting chairs and slid it into the hall with such force that when it collided with Randall's knees a tremendous crack could be heard echoing in the hallway.

Randall howled in pain and dropped the hot coffee, furthering his pain with the boiling liquid. Hie patted himself frantically, clutching his shins with one hand and trying to sweep the liquid off himself with the other.

Gordon stepped out into sight with the gun pointed unwaveringly at his best officer. He hated to do this but he had a plan now, one that wouldn't work if Randall kept getting in the way.

Officer Hughes looked up at the barrel of Gordon's gun. He froze in a comical position, half crouched dripping coffee and trying to regain some balance, a curse halfway off his lips.

They stood for a moment frozen in time, their eyes locked on each other.

"You-"

"Get in there." Gordon interrupted tipping his head to the door behind him.

Randall chuckled nervously, "Commissioner, you're upset, that's understandable, but-"

"I said get in." Gordon couldn't stop his voice from wavering a bit towards the end. He didn't know what he would do if Randall didn't move.

Slowly Randall stood, Gordon reached forward quickly and took his gun. Hughes started a bit at the sudden move and the contact. Standing he was a lot taller than his commanding officer, Gordon wrestled with the paranoid fear that was creeping up on him.

"Go."

The guns followed Randall's slow progress to the door. The officer tuned as he entered the room. "Commissioner, really there's no-"

Gordon slammed the door and pushed the chair up against the handle.

He turned and ran as Officer Hughes body slammed against the barricaded door, the whole wall shook with the force.

Hallways, doctors, doors nurses, they all flashed by him as blurs. He didn't know which part of the building he was in. Only that he needed to get to Batman soon. They needed to get out of the hospital before someone took the mask off everyones least favorite hero.

At last he arrived at room 17-A and he hurried inside, peering out back into the hallway, looking for signs of pursuit.

He froze at the biting sting of a knife point at his side.

"You really must learn to knock." The Joker's nasally voice whispered from behind the Commissioner. "I'll have to go now, take care of batsy will you?"

There was a hurried pat on the back and without another glance or word the Joker disappeared back into the hallway. Gordon's mind stopped functioning for a second. _What the hell... _seemed to be stuck on a broken record in his head. He glanced around and ducked instinctively. Batman was holing a plastic chair above his head with effortless ease, what could be seen from his face was livid with rage.

The chair was lowered but Bruce's wrath was still written on his face. Books, pipes, pillows, and various surgical implements were scattered around the room.

"Was that the Joker?" Gordon asked in disbelief.

"Just get me out of this damn hospital." Bruce growled, his breath hitched in his throat and he coughed.

"What did he want?" Gordon asked, his eyes wide.

"Nothing, he gave me some flowers." He pointed at a bunch of yellow flowers, their petals drooping. Inside each was a small spot of red. The plants were melting, their petals breaking off the stems in a flurry of yellow.

"This place gets stranger every minute." Gordon said, shaking his head, there were just too many things happening at once. "How did he get in anyway?"

"The roof I imagine, I think I'll go the same way."

"No, we've got a lot of officers in the hall, It's a wonder I made it here... And there were guards outside the door, What happened to-"

He stopped and sighed, "I forgot about the Joker."

"Why is it a wonder you made it here? They're your cops right? You can call them away."

"Not really, they have a restraining order against me. I'm not allowed within two hundred feet of you. They'd make it more but I have to sign the papers for that distance."

Bruce slumped onto the bed. "Jesus, what are we going to do now?"

Gordon pulled his gun out, "Most of the police force wants me to shoot you and I say I should."

Bruce backed away from the gun his masked eyes giving nothing away. Gordon put the gun down on the bed between them carefully. "Just listen, I have a plan..."

_**Fifty Reviews? I'm...I'm so-so...so happy. Bursts into tears I'd like to thank blondymc360, Heir to the World, Nyeh Creampuff, and the fanfiction website... sob How about we try for 100?**_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Hell yes! I updated! Short chapter but hey, that's the way I work. I'll try to make the next one longer. By the way, don't just put a story on alert, try to review as well.**_

"Gordon, open this door!"

Gordon pulled the medical equipment across the door, he turned to face Bruce again. "Are you ready?" He asked, his voice tight.

Bruce took a deep breath, "Yes"

"Remember, we don't have a lot of time, don't move until you hear my voice."

Bruce nodded tersely and the door broke inward, delicate medical instruments skidded across the floor and officers poured into the room, Gordon snatched up his gun and pointed it at Batman. It looked strange, twenty cops crammed into a small hospital room, forming a wide circle around an almost naked man in a Bat mask who was facing a gun.

"Gordon! Stand down NOW!" A guard was shouting orders but Gordon was fixed on his target, he realized that he couldn't do it. Hadn't seen his obvious weakness, he cursed himself, told himself to pull the trigger. But how could he do it? How could he, when this man had save the whole of Gotham almost single-handedly. Saved Gordon himself and Gordon's son as well.

_Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn, Damn, SHOOT HIM!_

_I can't._

_Do it!_

"Does it make you angry to know that I had your son on the roof?" Bruce had put on the gruff voice again, effectively masking his human side. "It would have been do easy to push him off, he was whimpering, calling for his _Daddy._"

Gordon knew what he was trying to do, it just made everything worse.

"Commissioner, put the gun down." It was Randall, his uniform stained and wet with the spilled coffee. His eyes were coated steel, hard, cold, unwavering.

Gordon felt the gun tremble in his hand.

_I can't do this._

Bruce was talking faster. "Come on Gordon, shoot me. An open target."

Still Gordon remained frozen, his mind hovering between determination and horror. He couldn't do it, but he couldn't put the gun down either.

_Dammit, it would never have worked. What was I thinking? It's ridiculous. How will I-_

Bruce jumped at Gordon and The Commissioner tightened his finger on the trigger reflexively. The noise was a sudden shock to the whole room, at first Gordon couldn't hear anything. Nothing could be louder than that shock of absolute noise. It echoed in the room.

Silence.

_Did I miss? Please, oh God, let me have missed._

The gun trembled in his hands. Batman folded up and the crowd of officers converged on him. Gordon and Randall were left standing in the shouting crowd, staring at each other as the people milled around them. They were alone in a crowded room.

Randall shook his head at his commanding officer and friend and left the room. Not once looking back. Gordon felt the gun slip from his hand and clatter to the floor.

He had just killed Batman.

* * *

_Confirmed reports of Batman's death today. Killed in a defensive shooting by Gotham's new Commissioner. Randall Hughes exited the building just moments ago and was in the room at the time of Batman's shooting. Most of us are wondering and I'm sure you can tell us, Just what happened at the time of the shooting?_

A harassed looking Randall was shoved into a microphone. One would pity the junior officer as questions were thrown from all sides. He tried answering them but was cut off each time by yet another spitfire reporter.

"Well, he-The Commissioner was talking to Batman and-"

"What were they talking about? Batman's upcoming trial and imprisonment? The Batman's recent kidnapping attempt on the Commissioner's family?"

"I'm sure when Gor-Commissioner Gordon is ready he'll release a statement, and we'll all-" Randall was digging himself deeper, he looked around hopelessly at all the reporters.

"When will a statement be issued."

"That has yet to be determin-"

"Can you speculate the reasons for the shooting?"

At this the crowd went silent and Randall swallowed thickly but his answer was loud and clear. "It was self defense, in my professional opinion the shooting was not accidental nor intended. It is my firm belief that the Commissioner was in no way wholly responsible for his actions as it was in his line of duty."

That sounded rehearsed, even on television. It was too fast, too practiced to be real. The names and words were too perfectly lined up.

Randall didn't meet the camera, he looked a faint green color. "No more questions please."

He didn't wait for a retort from the assembled journalists but retreated quickly back into the hospital, running a hand through his longish brown hair. The reporter appeared back on the screen her smile and hair perfectly in place as if it had been painted on.

The television was turned off with a click and in the kitchen of Wayne manor Alfred Pennyworth put his head into his hands, a cup of cold tea standing untouched on the smooth wooden table beside him.

_**So...review?  
**_


	6. KillJoy

_**Yeah, sorry i was gone for so long.**_

"God Dammit Gordon."

The Commissioner looked up in surprise. The mayor stood in the doorway flanked by two bodyguards.

Gordon stood up hurriedly, knocking the table backwards with his legs as he did so.

"Sir, I-"

"Did I ask you to speak?" The mayor asked quietly, his voice echoing in the cold room.

Gordon shut up. While Mayor Anthony Garcia kept his temper for the most part, when he was angry people ended up regretted being in the same room.

The mayor, motioned his guards out of the room and closed the door behind them. Gordon remained standing, feeling awkward in the presence of a man he had always admired.

There was the metronome click of the mayors sturdy shoes, Gordon swallowed hard.

The Mayor turned and rubbed his temples. "Gordon, you know how much heat you're going to get for this? You know how much _I'm _going to get for this?"

"I was-"

"I've heard it all before Gordon, don't make me hear it from you."

"No, I wouldn't..." Gordon trailed off, he hadn't really come up with an explanation.

"You know, when i got this city it was a nightmare. I faced twelve assassinations in my first month. Now I'm getting fat behind a desk. You did that, Batman did that."

Gordon shifted uneasily on his feet. Mayor Garcia had stopped pacing and was staring at the Commissioner, his brow furrowed.

"I thought I could trust you, I thought that you could handle the position I gave you."

"Who came for him?" It was the question that burned in Gordon's mind, the one thing that he needed to know.

"I don't know." the mayor was temporarily derailed from his train of thought. He shook his head impatiently "Look, I'm going to have to put you on probation, and that's a light punishment."

Gordon opened his mouth to protest but Garcia interrupted. "This is a betrayal. There is nothing further to say."

"Look sir, I didn't-"

The door slammed behind the mayor and the Commissioner was left standing alone in the room.

* * *

A slip of shadow tapped at the morgue basement. The sound was faint, on the edge of hearing, nothing moved in the still silent room, it was as if nothing had ever disturbed the hushed tomb.

There was a pause and then the sound of breaking glass, the muted crash echoed in the stillness.

Jim Gordon clambered out into the darkness, breathing heavily.

"Hello?"

Silence.

"...Right."

He stood awkwardly beside the broken window, his face half masked in shadow.

Loud shouts could be heard far off in the distant hospital. Gordon knew that running through the hospital were various reporters and journalists searching for Batman and himself. Nervously, afraid of the boor bursting in and exposing him, Gordon crept through the room, searching.

He was a good cop, but poor at stealth. When he had been in the force, guns came out first in all situations, creeping and stalking were for criminals.

His attention was caught by a gurney pushed up against the many shelves. A body lay still with the moon casting it's pale, dappled rays around it.

Gordon made his way over to the still figure upon it.

"It's me..."

Nothing.

"...hello?"

No response.

Gordon swallowed hard. He hadn't _really _killed him had he? Wait... Wayne had jumped at him, perhaps the movement had shifted his aim? No, Gordon was a fair shot, he wouldn't make that mistake. Would he?

Gordon gathered his courage and prodded a shoulder. The flesh was cold, hard, clammy, limp, dead.

"Oh, Goddammit!"

He kicked the shelf violently, not noticing the pain. He had just killed Batmen. He braced himself on the gurney, trying to think. What was he going to do now? This whole exercise was useless, he was going to lose his job, his friendships, maybe even his family, and he had just _killed_ Batman.

He closed his eyes and leaned backward. "Fuck."

"You got that right Commissioner." A nasal voice shivered up Gordon's spine.

The acid prick of a knife stopped Gordon from whipping around. He froze.

The Joker for once, wasn't laughing, his voice was lower than usual, hoarser. He was angrier than Gordon had ever heard him.

"You must be exhausted, why don't you rest those legs."

The knife slid into Gordon's side and he gasped, it didn't hurt much at the moment, the Joker's knives were too sharp for that, but later there would be pain.

Gordon slumped to his knees as the knife was withdrawn. He could feel hot blood burning a trail down his side.

"You shot batsy."

Gordon nodded slowly.

"I respect you and bats very much, I thought we had a mutual agreement. We all stuck to our separate little lives, and when they intertwined we tried our best to hurt one another, but here is the one rule that I can agree upon, _We don't kill each other._"

The knife had found it's way to Gordon's neck where it stayed unwavering, barely touching his skin.

"You see, I thought we had a code, well, you and bats did, You would... how do you put it? 'Book me'? Because your morals are so demanding. And me? I just kept you two alive because you are an incompetent fool and bats is just too much fun."

The Joker took a deep breath. "But. You turned out to be such a _killjoy. _What exactly did batsy do or say to get you to take such drastic measures?'

When Gordon didn't reply the Joker sighed. "I'm not big on revenge killings, if you study them you'll see that there is actually a pattern. And I just hate patterns."

The knife was scratching Gordon's neck, irritating the area.

"Please..." Gordon gasped as the metal dug further into his skin.

"Shut up Gordon. I want you to die a man of honor, that's more than you deserve."

"No please, I didn't want kill him."

The knife stopped it's slow inch and was withdrawn. The Joker backed off and whipped the mask off the figure on the gurney.

Gordon got off his knees, they ached from their prolonged time on the floor. The knife whipped around to Gordon's throat and the Commissioner froze again, his eyes squeezed closed.

"He looks pretty dead to me."

Gordon opened his eyes and yelped. Batman's mask was dangling off the Joker's long fingers and Batman's face was revealed in the moonlight.

It wasn't Bruce Wayne.

_**Well, yeah, yet another short chappie, I'm trying to get back on track. I dedicate this chapter to Margaret Flora, an amazing artist and loyal friend who was taken too soon in a horrible way.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**This is to J-Horror Fan 4-Ever, who has helped me through some hard times lately.Also in special thanks is Nyeh Creampuff, Blondymc360, Grace Dark, and as always, my first reviewer-Heir to the world.**_

_**I'm sorry it's taking so long to update. I'm trying to get back onto my feet again.**_

_**Sorry Minerva's cat...**_

* * *

"That's not him." Gordon was backed into a shelf, a knife at his throat.

The Joker pushed the blade forward a little, his teeth baring. "I don't like liars, and you are not my favorite person at the moment."

"No, I swear, that's not-"

Gordon stopped breathing as the knife was pushed firmly into his neck.

"Why should I believe you?" The question wasn't forced or sarcastic, it was merely curious. There was no laugh in his words.

Gordon just looked at him helplessly. He was backed up against a box of rubber gloves and syringes and he was asking the Joker to trust him.

But god, he didn't want to die. Not now, not at this time, not with a wife and sons at home waiting for him. They must be asleep by now...

When Gordon didn't answer the Joker pulled back. "You wanna' play head games? Because I will _always_ win."

"No, I'm trying to tell you, That's not him."

The Joker let Gordon go and moved back to the body of the false Batman.

"All right, I'll play along. So why did you shoot McDead here?"

"I wasn't trying-"

"Alright, I'm bored already. Tell you what, we can go fetch the bat that you think you didn't kill. I'll tag along and as soon as you give up on your little game I'll- well I'll have to think of something on the way."

Gordon was clutching at his heart, almost panting for air. "Where are we going"

The Joker looked at him in surprise. "You tell me."

"What?" Gordon staggered onto his feet and looked up at the Joker.

The clown rolled his eyes, pushed the body off the gurney and lay down on it, his knees folded. "You are really not a very good cop. I wonder sometimes how you made it so far in the force. You are quite dim."

"You want me to go chasing after Batman?"

"If you don't want to that's fine. I can kill you now." The Joker made a move to get up but Gordon quickly put a hand up. "No! No. I'll find him."

"I'm sure you will."

* * *

Alfred Pennyworth stared down at the boy he had raised for the past fifteen years. He had grown into a fine man.

Alfred had not seen the full extent of his wards injuries. Bruce had been extraordinarily good at hiding the various bruises and cuts that he had sustained from his late night escapades. Now that Alfred could see just how badly his master had taken a beating he was wondering how he had ever let the young Wayne continue with his insane plan.

The whole of Bruce's chest was a mass of scar tissue, bruises and cuts. Three stab wounds had been clumsily sewn shut with blue thread. The job had been rushed, the stitches were uneven. Alfred cut them carefully with the small black embroidery scissors he had learned to keep close.

He began to fix the thread, closing the wounds efficiently. He stared at the one wound he had yet to clean and close, the badge of honor, the bullet wound just over Bruce's heart. It was puffy, singed on the edges. There had been blood, a lot of blood.

When Alfred had first seen his ward, lying so still, so silent, and so bloody, he had feared the worst.

He had almost given up on him.

And then Lucius Fox had stepped out of the van and carried the young Wayne up the steps, Alfred had felt his world begin to spin. The site of the last of the Wayne legacy so pale against Lucius' black suit. The bullet, the knife wounds, the bruises. They all swam together.

Alfred had loved many people and he was loved, but he had never, in all his years, felt as much pain and loneliness as when his young charge had been carried up the steps.

He wanted to shout out to Bruce, wanted him to get up, to walk proudly up those steps not as a billionaire playboy, not as Batman, but as his father's son, as the man he had never had the chance to be.

And then the relief of the heartbeat, the overwhelming, knee buckling breathlessness of finding a pulse, the realization that life could go on.

And that Bruce Wayne was not dead.

Lucius must have felt it too. Bruce Wayne didn't have many friends, he had lost Rachel, his parents. All he had left was his company CEO and his old butler.

But what loyal friends they were.

Alfred taped a piece of gauze on the wound and sat down, staring at his ward. He could remember when he had reported his ward missing. Phoning friends, schools, enemies, waiting for a ransom note or a call saying someone had found the lost prince of Gotham. The endless weeks waiting by the phone investigating every siting no matter how unlikely.

The day that his death had been declared, Alfred had worn a hole in the carpet, his shoulders tense.

The day he had grieved the Wayne family. The nights where he lay awake at night wondering where his master was. Wondering why he hadn't drawn any money out of the account.

He remembered, the angry tears that had threatened to fall when Bruce's will had been read. The sensation of waiting for seven years, waiting for a phone to ring, waiting tensely everyday for the one person he considered family to be found.

And then the day that Bruce Wayne had dialed his old butler, the day that a familiar voice had tentatively asked to be picked up, like it hadn't been years, like it was like any other day.

But it was the day that had renewed Alfred pennyworth's hope. The day that he his persistence had paid off.

Bruce Wayne would keep fighting.

* * *

_**I'll have an update by next weekend... I promise on my mother's grave.**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Heylo! Well, it's still the weekend, i have no idea when I'll update next, it might be as early as tomorrow or as late as next weekend. I have absolutely no idea. Anyway, this story is bugging me, I really just want to go back to writing my little stories about the Joker and his comfortable life of crime... Batman was never in my agenda... **_

The Joker lounged against a wall, cleaning his fingernails with a knife.

Gordon was trying to extricate himself from the sheet that had tangled around his ankles. "This is ridiculous. Your plan to get out of the hospital was to play dress up?"

"Correction, the plan was to get myself out. You were never included. _And_ you said I couldn't kill anyone."

"You can't."

"Your game is boring... want to play one of mine?"

"No."

"You're not being very nice."

Gordon straightened up and kicked the sheet out of his way. He stood, trying to get his bearings. It was a small room, little bigger than a bedroom, gurneys were spread out haphazardly side by side, crammed into corners, some were slightly tilted where they had been pushed forcefully into one another. It was like a scrapyard.

"Where are we?"

The Joker flipped the knife up and caught it by the blade in two fingers. "They sanitize these every four hours or so." He pocketed the knife and watched Gordon. "I was feeling rather proud of this plan. It worked didn't it?"

Gordon refused to look at him. The Joker had taken his makeup off and to see someone so universally hated looking so human put shivers up Gordon's spine. The one thing that had kept Gordon same throughout his time picking up the pieces of Gotham which had been strewn in his wake was to think of the Joker as a monster, not a human. To associate yourself with someone so... off... was crazy, was unthinkable. You did everything you could to see a person who killed and corrupted children not as someone, but as something.

And yet the Joker was flesh and blood, he had brown eyes, light skin, a handsome face.

But this 'man' had blown women to pieces, had tortured men. Had deprived Gordon of sleep for months at a time.

And yet at some point, the Joker had spillable blood, breakable bones. To be so disillusioned tore at Gordon. It was worse than realizing Batman had an identity, because the Commissioner had been proud to have some connection to a hero. But to have such a connection to a villain as well.

It wasn't enjoyable.

It wasn't _right._

The joker dropped the lab coat that had concealed his bright purple clothing onto the speckled green floor.

"Someone could have recognized you." How could they not, they could sense it couldn't they, they would have been able to see through that surgical mask to the scars. You couldn't not recognize the Joker. He wasn't like them, you would know... Surely you would know...

"Take away my smile and my own mother wouldn't recognize me." He chuckled and fingered his scars fondly.

Gordon shuddered and turned to a door on the far end of the room. He had hated lying on the gurney, the metal had been so cold. And of course the sensation of being wheeled along by the _Joker_ of all people. It was silent, the thin cloth blurred faces and sound. It was as if he had been dead, not just pretending. The dizzy feeling of being moved without walking.

It had been creepy.

Even without a mass murder being in total control of where he was going.

It was so simple why hadn't he though of it when he had tried to get Bruce out? Just wheel a gurney, don't shoot the damn guy, just push a table.

He was so fucking _stupid_ sometimes.

He pushed at the door which opened with a groan of tired hinges. The Joker sighed and stepped out past Gordon who had frozen in place.

Eight cop cars were parked outside, just below where The Joker and The Commissioner now stood.

"Come on Gordon, no one is looking at you all the time."

The black shoes that The Joker wore were placed directly over an officer who was drinking coffee and, ironically, eating a donut.

"You're holding us up."

_Why can't he talk softer?_

It was also the sheer drop to the dumpsters that stopped Gordon. He wasn't _afraid _of heights, of course not. Well, not in a manner of speaking...

Taking a deep shaking breath, Gordon stepped out onto the thin metal grid of a landing. He didn't like this plan.

He gripped the rail tightly, his knuckled going white. It wasn't a bad fall, only fifty feet or so. Looked longer than it actually was.

"I've always wondered about you and bats. You tow must be very close, all those midnight calls..."

_Don't look down._

"Don't get me wrong. I think it's sweet. Young love and all that." He giggled.

_Head games, just head games, don't look down._

Gordon took one step at a time, half wanting to sprint down the steps and get it over and done with, and half wanting to stay up on the fire-escape for ever.

"So why'd you shoot him?"

Second landing, three more to go.

Gordon took another step, refusing to look at the joker who was applying his makeup as he went down the steps two at a time.

Third landing, two more to go.

"I was a little jealous you know, I mean I thought I knew Bats better than anyone, I thought we shared a dream."

He leaped lightly onto the ledge, swinging off the fire escape. Gordon followed slowly, clutching at the wall with sweaty hands. The cops below us didn't look up as the Joker kept talking, tip-toeing across the wall like an absurd tight rope walker.

He turned around suddenly, his purple coat flapping in the slight wind. "We are so alike you know. I _liked_ Batman. The idea of him is just so... refreshing. But you killed that, you're such a_ down to earth guy_."

Suddenly the Joker was right in front of Gordon, his eyes were no longer a warm brown, but had turned black, hard, unforgiving. The soft lines of an otherwise handsome face had become hard, the bone structure had somehow changed with the makeup. Light blond hair had grown greasy, and suddenly The Joker was a lot more frightening that Gordon had ever imagined.

"Get it?" The Joker whispered, his voice dropping a little lower.

Suddenly he laughed and turned to continue his skipping walk across the wall.

_Just a head game, just a head game, don't look down._


	9. Chapter 9

**Really short chapter ahead people, this was originally really long chapter but I broke it up to save time. It's unsatisfying but it needed to get written, the next update is already written, it just needs a few tweaks here and there. Sorry I've been working all week and my comp isn't letting me upload to the website... :(**

The door creaked open. Alfred quickly swept the coils of sutures and syringes off the table, he cursed as a bottle of anesthetic smashed on the floor. He bent down, his old bones protesting at the small movement. He looked up panicked as a head appeared in the doorway. For a moment Alfred didn't recognize his old friend. The engraved laugh lines and creases that had come to rest on Fox's kind face were drawn with tension and worry.

"How's he doing?"

Alfred rubbed his wearily and sighed. He really was too old to handle what was going on. Old bones and new ideas didn't mix well.

"I don't know. I have the medical equipment running, but he's not showing any improvement." Alfred looked despairingly at Fox. "I'm no doctor, I don't know what I'm doing. What if I kill him Lucius?"

Fox joined Alfred at the table and considered his friend. Bruce was a good man but even when he was sacrificing life, limb, and sanity he was rather selfish. He didn't realize how much Alfred had grown to depend on Bruce. Fox had no illusions when it came to the young billionaire, Bruce had been lucky, but Fox knew that at some point luck ran out. Batman was a man, and men died.

Alfred however had seen Bruce as invincible and as titanic as the former Wayne, Bruce's father. They were Titans. Men of power and wealth and will.

But Bruce's father had been a gentle guidance, he believed in the innate good of man. Not that he would ever admit it, but Bruce was cynical.

And he good reason.

Fox got up and filled a kettle. "You worry too much Alfred. All you had to do was stitch him up."

"But he's been out for almost four hours." Said Alfred morosely, studying his hands. "He should be up now, they said he was doing exercises in the hospital."

"He's always been crazy, at some point Batman has to rest and there's too much excitement in one body." The kettle settled on the old fashioned stove. Bruce had tried to replace Alfred's kitchen with newer, more modern appliances, but Alfred had put his foot down.

He had grown up in this kitchen and he said he was too old now to learn how to use the new technologies. But Fox suspected it was more. He had personally upgraded the computers in Wayne mansion three times and Alfred had read each manual.

But who had ever heard of the sentimental value of an oven?

"He's not like his father, he can't just bounce back up. He took three knived to the chest one which nicked the lung and a bullet just above the heart, not to mention the bruised and the broken ribs I found."

"It sounds like you know what you're doing."

"But I don't. I can treat bruises and cuts Lucius, but bullet wounds? Knives?"

"It's fine, you just need to relax. In fact you need a vacation."

Alfred ignored Fox and stood up. "But you haven't _seen_ it. He never even showed me some of his injuries. He doesn't trust me anymore."

"He trusts you too much Alfred, he knows you too well. I've told you too many times, you worry too much, he's a boy, he gets some scrapes. It's life."

Alfred turned a tortured gaze on his old friend. "Bullet wounds? You don't worry about _bullet _wounds?"

There was silence.

"You know, I knew this would happen. They told me to watch out, just after Master and Mistress Wayne died, they told me to watch out. They wanted to check for suicidal tendencies at _seven._ Seven years old. I was so scared Lucius, so goddamn scared."

Alfred stared at his hands. "I don't know what to do anymore. I spin and spin and spin and there's nothing to catch me. Why did I even agree to this crazy scheme? It's madness. He's going to get himself killed and I promoted it."

Fox patted his old friend on the back consolingly. "It's no one's fault but his own."

The kettle began to scream.

**By the way the phrase "the kettle began to scream" is copyrighted by one Erin , I'm sorry Erin it was just to good a sentence to pass up. Forgive me?**

**The next chapter is mostly written, I know this update wasn't particularly satisfying but the next will be. I just watched a Nicholas cage movie and as all Nicholas cage movies it has a horribly cliffy ending, but there's no sequel... :( that's the last Nicholas Cage movie I watch for the rest of my life. I mean come on! The movie was called 'Next' and it was fairly good and then all of a sudden BAM! You get hit with a cutoff. You can't make a movie called 'Next' and then not tell you what _comes_ next...**

**But hey Nick, if you're reading this I love you and all your movies! **

**Sorry I have had a rough week.**

**Here's a preview for the next update.**


	10. Chapter 10

_**Well, yes... it's been a long time... I am VERY ashamed. **_

_**Forgive me?**_

_**And review?**_

The train rocketed along it's frozen tracks. Gotham got cold at night. Too cold and with the train's underfunded budget the heaters were grimy and poorly maintained. The cold didn't seem to bother the Joker. He sat his legs stretched out before him, a brown trench coat gripped tightly around his body.

Gordon couldn't help but stare at his captor. The Joker was thin, too thin. The clown's stomach was pulled in tightly it looked almost comical if it weren't so scary, it was like one of those posters of the starving children in some far off country. The Joker's makeup leered in the bright white lights that illuminated the long car that the commissioner and the Joker were now sharing. Almost no one rode the trains, most had been shut down and reconstructed due to Wayne enterprises renewed interest in public transportation. It was crazy to think that The Joker was riding on Batman's train with the police commissioner who was on the run from his own officers and the vigilante that was supposed to save Gotham citizens every day was a billionaire playboy. It was as if the world had turned upside down. It was madness.

The Joker was knocking his head against the train's thick window, making a small wooden sound as his skull connected with the glass. The Joker could never be still, his face was always in movement, always showing some emotion or another. But now his face was still, silent, reserved, and it scared Gordon more than anything he had seen so far tonight. The Joker kept up a stream of conversation as they had made their way across the city, not bothering to ask where they were headed. But as soon as they had boarded the train he had fallen silent and had merely sat down and brooded.

Gordon hadn't gotten used to the Joker's presence. It was like a wolf in a pack of deer. He was frozen unable to move as the dog moved in on the kill. It wasn't a nice feeling, helplessness.

But the Joker was angry, he was always angry but now all that passive-aggressive energy had been focused on one object, Gordon.

The clown's eyes were bloodshot. And while it was mostly the madness that Gordon had seen before so many times, they were now full of something much more profound, and the Commissioner didn't like it.

The Joker didn't love, he didn't care he didn't understand people. He just knew them, he knew their value and worth like some twisted jeweler who scrutinized people found their flaws and discarded them. But the Joker had felt _something_ for Batman, it might have been hate, it might have been something akin to love. But more than anything it was _interest._

The Joker had exploited and killed almost everyone he met on the street but Batman had been such a challenge such a new idea. He hadn't taken Batman's appearance lightly it was as if the two lived in some sort of alternate reality where there was only Batman and Joker and people were score points in a game.

And Gordon was stuck in the middle, always pulling to one side, trying to keep everyone in a semi-normal state of decency. But he had corrupted that in the Joker's eyes. He had 'killed' the one man who the Joker refused to kill, the one person that the clown had ever dreamed of showing a spark of something besides indifference.

The Joker didn't see people or money. What he saw was what Gordon was feeling now, the unbalanced upside downs of life's little ironies.

The Joker had always had a very special brand of humor. The Joker was evil, he was in fact, beyond evil. He was the nemesis of man kind the fear that lurked in dark corners yet he was attractive, not in the usual sense of marriage and babies but there was a charismatic feel to his personality, an aura of knowing more than the person you're talking to. The Joker wasn't someone you looked up to but he was someone who, like a magnet, pulled you in his direction.

The real question was why the Joker was following Gordon around like some sort of bipolar pit bull puppy with anger issues.

The train rattled on it's hinges the grooved wheels squeaking in protest ad it came to a halt, the Joker's head gave one last bump against the windshield. Gordon could see smudges of blue outside the vandalized, scratched and frosted glass but he knew that color, he had seen it almost everyday for the past seventeen years, he had worn it. Before he knew what was happening he was grabbed by the collar of his jacket and pulled along the car to the back. The doors behind the Joker and Gordon started to squeal open and with one jerky movement the Joker jerked the door that linked the two car apart and stepped outside, pulling Gordon with him. Three police officers stepped inside the train, unknowingly being watched by the two of the five most wanted criminals that they had been assigned to look for.

Gordon pulled the door closed and ducked beneath the window. The Joker had his ear pressed against the cold metal doors.

Something was pressed into Gordon's leg and he looked down. The Joker had his knife held loosley pressed against the steel door. It was freezing outside but the Joker didn't seem to mind. Gordon however had chills running races up his exposed face and arms. But all of his attention was on that knife, if he could maybe wrestle it away...

He inched his hand slowly to the blade, his eyes flickering to the Joker's intent face every so often. Whatever was going on on the other side of the door must have been interesting because he wasn't even keeping one eye on the Commissioner.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Gordon inched a shaking and toward the knife. It was so close...

The Joker's paint splashed fingers were splayed across the brushed metal. Gordon would just have to reach the knife, slip it out of that grasp...

Then what?

…

It didn't matter, he would get to that when the time came.

His numb finger tips were against the hilt...

And suddenly Gordon's attention shifted to the Joker's face as it was pressed against the door, everything was balanced on the clown ignoring him.

The murmuring of the police officer's in the train were not important. The penetrating cold wasn't a factor. It was the knife and the Joker and Gordon, all in a blank space, waiting for some determining factor... and then.

With one simple tug the knife slid into Gordon's grip and the Joker's head was turning toward him... The bark of laughter from some comment inside, the squealing as the train started, the frozen air, the sweat that had dripped from Gordon's brow. It was all in one continuous moment.

And Gordon slid the knife underneath the Joker's chin, smashed his hand to the train with a knee and grabbed the Joker's right hand in his own. It was a ridiculous posture, uncomfortable and somehow personal. Gordon's old, overused joints screamed at him but he held his pose, waiting for the next signal to tell him what to do next.

The Joker's face was turned towards the sky pulled slightly sideways as he was leaning towards his trapped hand. But his eyes were still dancing and he was holding back laughter, Gordon just knew he was, and it infuriated him. Couldn't he, just for once let Gordon have the upper hand?

_**So yeah...**_

_**FORGIVE ME!!!!!!!!! **_

_**I'M SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**_

_**Review anyone?**_


	11. Chapter 11

Newsflash from my side:

Hospitals suck.

So, yes I was gone for a long time and I am so sorry. I missed you all so terribly. Ummm... so yeah. If you PM me I'll tell you why I was gone for so long. This is a really weird interlude that popped into my head while I was.... absent.

_"Bruce!" The voice was so familiar, so loving and playful as it laughed out his name, but he couldn't place it. _

_"Bruce?" A man peered around a corner his blue eyes dancing A man whose face had in Bruce's memory become fuzzy and lost. _

_His father was shorter than he remembered, his hair thinning a little in the front._

_"Bruce?" Now his father was worried, The deep laugh lines turned into wrinkles. It took Bruce a moment to realize that his father was aging right before his eyes. Skin turned past white with a tinge of yellow, bright white, straight teeth turned inward on each other and yellowing like old parchment. _

_"Bruce where are you hiding?" The old man croaked as his spine bent. _

_It was as though Bruce was invisible to his father, who was now almost eighty years old. Hair fell out to the ground in tufts of white. Eyes had glazed to blindness but they still roamed around the room, searching for Bruce._

_"Come out come out wherever you are."_

_His face was changing again,melting and rearranging itself. Hair forced it's way out of a regenerating skull. Suddenly time snapped back and he was staring at scarlet scars stretched across a leering face. _

_"Bruce?" It was still his father's voice, but unfamiliar lips distorted it into an insane chuckle. _

_"Daddy?" There was a small boy under the stairs. Bruce reached out to a small version of himself. He had been so young once..._

_"Hey there Bruce." The Joker knelt and Young Bruce ran into his open arm. _

_"No, get away from him!" Bruce grabbed the Joker's arm and dragged him backwards. The Joker looked up, stunned and hurt, but those eyes were pitch black and malevolently evil. He could see Bruce. Really see him._

_Young Bruce had run up the stairs, not seeming to notice what was happening in the hall below. "You're it, Daddy."  
"Go play." The Joker called, his eyes not leaving Bruce, his face paint seemed to be dripping off his lips and eyes, the black and white and red dripping down his cheeks like water. Melting together in a grimy mess._

_Young Bruce disappeared up the stairs still laughing._

_The Joker and Bruce looked at each other for a long time, Bruce couldn't think, his mind was all fuzzy. _

_"What do you want?" That deep frightened voice was his father's but the face was the Joker's._

_The face paint was nearly all gone. But it was still the Joker's face. The color of the skin didn't change those eyes. _

_Bruce couldn't answer, the Joker was a handsome man, boyish looks untainted by age, light laugh lines that framed a pale mouth. Lank greenish hair paled to a dark blond._

_"Get out of my dreams." But it wasn't his voice, it was Batman's. _

_The Joker's eyes lightened with relief. "Batsy, you scared me." He beckoned for Bruce to help him up but he wouldn't have touched the Joker for hid fortune._

_"Stop with the games Joker. You don't belong here." Once again Batman was using him like a puppet. Speaking to the Joker without Bruce's mind making a response._

_"Ah, but the game keeps us both alive, and I'm not the bad guy in this place." the Joker giggled and snapped his fingers before Bruce could lunge at him. Everything went dark._

_Bruce's arms that had been reaching out to trap the Joker snapped backwards with two loud cracks. He was naked from the waist up his legs tied together and his hands stretched sideways by an invisible force, he hung there, the sun only getting colder against his skin, Gotham lay sprawled below him. But it wasn't the Gotham that he remembered. People were rioting in the streets, cries of pain and violence echoed out of the miniature city. _

_It was still beautiful though, the old Victorian houses on the east end still rose majestically from the streets and the narrows with it's abstract, crooked apartments sprung up underneath him. It was floating rocking slightly in the wind. _

_A building exploded, and then another, piercing screams echoed up at him, tinny in the great emptiness that extended in every direction. _

_Bruce had to help them, had to reach them, but his arms couldn't move. He was forced to watch as the city was engulfed in flames. _

_And then without warning, the pain struck. Bruce had endured a lot in his escapades as batman but this was something entirely different, this was as if his stomach was being torn apart from the inside, his heart exploded in his chest. His head was being ripped from his shoulders. _

_He bucked on the invisible wall. His ribs heaving as he fought the fire that was engulfing his entire spirit.. His entire being. _

_And then as suddenly as it had come it was gone, leaving a duill ache in his bones. Warm liquid was running down his face. He knew what that substance was, he had felt it often enough. _

_Blood. _

_It ran from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, streaming off his chin onto the burning city, snuffing the explosions._

_Bruce couldn't feel anything, his head was getting fuzzy and his head dropped to his chest. The city was once again bustling, it's citizens jumping in the pools of his blood, children splashed each other, some workers wading across the bloody streets to get to thier4 destinations. _

_And now it was no longer his face bleeding but his chest and arms. Shallow cuts every where, focused on his forehead and wrists. His hands and feet, all lacerated. Blood dripping slowly onto the building. Dogs and cats were drinking the rain. Men were clearing it off their cars only to drive through flooded streets._

_And Bruce hurt because he couldn't save the city. Because he couldn't stop trying, because was destroying himself. _

_Because his only demon was Gotham. Because the city had his soul. Captured it, and bottled it up. Fed it to it's streets. _

So yeah... review!


	12. Chapter 12

_**Yep I'm a bastard to make you wait for this... Sorry. Hopefully you enjoy the new chapter.**_

"You really don't want to be doing this." The Joker smiled, his neck stretched backwards to accommodate the awkward position he had been forced into. They both had a grip on the knife but their wrists couldn't take the strain much longer, it was like playing a game, seeing who would break first.

Gordon's hand slipped a bit on the handle and he tightened his fingers. The train was starting to rock, picking up speed.

"You know, you might want to listen to me at this point." Gordon's hand slid another few centimeters on the hilt of the knife, the Joker was now grabbing the blade his blood running rivers down the silver slope.

"I don't need to listen to a damn word, Joker." Gordon hissed, his voice rising over the sound of train wheels dragging across iron railings.

The Joker raised his eyebrows with a chuckle. "Actually, I think you'll find that you do."

Gordon stared mesmerized by that knife, only his fingertips were clinging to it but the blade had gone right to the bone of the Joker's fingers, blood was pouring over the weapon, making the grip on the damn thing harder.

Now the train was shaking, the only reason they hadn't fallen off was the fact that the Joker was holding onto the hook that connected the two cars together.

The wind was starting to beat at them both as the train picked up speed.

And the knife slipped out of both of their fingers and plummeted down to the city streets now almost a hundred feet below the train tracks.

The Joker had half turned to watch it fall, his eyes widening and a small hiss of anger on his lips. Gordon brought his elbow up quickly and smashed the Joker's chin upwards. The back of the clown's head it the train car's door with an echoing crack. The wind was rushing past the alcove between the two cars.

The Joker's leg kicked and Gordon slid backwards he was now hanging just above the rushing rails. The noise of the train was almost unbearable.

The Joker stood, swaying easily with the movement of the train, both of his hands were free, but at least he didn't have a knife.

There was no excitement that came from a roller coaster, there was no adrenaline rush, no life altering realization, no time for regrets or memories.

Just the feeling of everything dropping away. Just a tiredness that seemed to seep into his bones. He had lived for so long fearing this moment, but now it just seemed that wind was a pleasant breeze. The breath was being sucked of his lungs but he didn't need it much anyway, time had slowed to a crawl. And the Joker just stare at him. That ever present smile on the Joker's face had somehow disappeared, leaving behind something that wasn't quite human. It was a beautiful face, but beautiful in the way that an abstract painting will catch your eye and hold you captivated for hours.

But as soon as it had come it was gone and there was just the Joker, his hand dripping blood and his smile as mad and insane as ever.

"They're searching for you Gordon, Batsy's dead and Gotham's gone to hell!" The Joker was shouting over the roar of the train to be heard. He pushed his clumped hair out of his eyes, leaving a streak of red on his white forehead.

"That's what you wanted isn't it, you wanted to push Gotham, see when it would break." Gordon gasped, his head was straining, if he lowered it another inch it would be sucked to the rails.

"It came at too high a price Gordon, you think I wanted my victory so that when Gotham came to me Batman would have to choose. I'm a monster Gordon, not your common maniac."

The Joker reached out a hand to Gordon's head.

_Oh, god, he's going to grind my head into the rail_

The ominous hand had reached the Commissioners neck.

_Oh God, Oh God, Oh God_

Gordon squeezed his eyes closed, he waited.

The hand pulled him up, up beck onto the safety of the cars, a little respite from the frostbite wind.

The Joker's eyes met Gordon's, he hadn't let go of the Commissioner's shirt. Those eyes were completely human, they were animals but people sometimes forget they are, when you get down to the basics, flesh, blood, hair, and instinct.

Sometimes you forget that souls might not exist.

And the Joker's eyes were bottomless, and if there were such things as souls, this man would have one. Villains aren't a different race from heroes, they just have different instincts.

Those eyes were burnt into Gordon's vision like black sunspots.

Even as he was flung outward, even as the Joker had thrown him off the train, as the sky turned to city, Gordon could feel those furious, unforgiving, and... _anguished_ eyes.

It seemed like an endless moment, falling without time. But to the watcher's that weren't looking, there was just a man who fell like a rock, there was no romanticism, no back story. Just a stupid man who obviously couldn't deal with his problems.

_How right they were..._

_

* * *

  
_

Alfred opened the door, adjusting his suit as he did so. He served for the wealthiest and most mannered of Gotham. Vain little pricks who were just itching to point out any flaw in the perfect life of Bruce Wayne.

Well oiled doors swung inward without a squeak. Polished floors warmed in the flood of sunlight...and balloons.

Brightly colored globes exploded into the hall as he opened the door and Alfred took a smart step backwards.

"'Gram's are sent around to the back, you'll see the signs in the driveway." He told the riot of helium and plastic.

There was a pause and then a sort of half giggle. "I'm looking for Mr. Wayne."

"I'm afraid Master Wayne is rather indisposed at the moment." Alfred said searching for a face or form within the mass.

There was another pause and then the barrel of a gun appeared from within the cloud. "It's rather urgent."

The balloons drifted upwards and a man appeared, his suit rumpled and stained, his hair hanging in clumps like dreadlocks. His face paint had smeared, the black eyes bleeding into the white face to make exaggerated crows feet and deep pockets in his cheeks. It was as if a corpse had been hooked onto puppet strings.

He was breathing heavily, his eyes wild and his rather tasteless tie bloodstained. A police officer's cap was perched haphazardly on his head, with a large peacock feather sticking out of the band.

"I'm looking for Mr. Wayne." the Joker repeated.

_**Id like to say that the next chapter will be quick in coming but then again why would you trust me? Anyway I'm sorry again... I'd really appreciate a review.**_


	13. Chapter 13

Gordon fell, his stomach was flipping and his heart was beating fit to explode. Adrenaline was overpowering all his senses and yet he was calm.

He had lived with death all his career and it was a type of suicide, joining the police force out of honest intentions in the time of drug lords and mobs. It had quieted down when the Batman had come into the field and now he was wielding more pens than handcuffs, not that he wielded handcuffs much in the old days anyway. Law had a funny way of biting the asses of honest people. You had to be a slippery son of a bitch to stay out of jail and a real, god natured fool to stay in one.

But he joined at age twenty-eight, there was no rhyme or reason to that decision. His mother wept as if he was leaving for war, in a way he was. His training was a slap-shod mockery of laws, mostly lectures on how not to get caught beating civilians and ways to escape persecution for accepting bribes.

It wasn't his life flashing before his eyes, and that was probably for the best. He had shut most of it out to save some of his soul and reliving the grimy parts of his career would kill his faith faster than reason.

Ah, but Batman had come, and then life suddenly had a purpose. Batman was everything to him. True, a man that dressed as a bat was a poor role-model but it was the best thing that this city ever had and he was Gordon's hero. A single man who single-handedly could drag Gotham back into the light, who could sacrifice everything and who would never ever, ever lose his faith.

Plus he had a cool costume.

Then the Joker even that couldn't shake his faith in the Batman. Because all that Gordon had to do was switch on a light all his problems could be passed onto to someone more able to deal with them. Laws could be fought by the lawless, but the lawless were never defeated by order.

And then it turned out that the one thing he had placed all his faith in was in a fact a person. That had never been an issue before. Hell, he knew that it was an ordinary man that was fighting criminals, but now that man had a face and he had placed the fate of the city on a mere echo of a vision. The bright future wasn't so bright when it sacrificed eyes and a voice and a soul.

The air was rushing and Gordon's eyes had closed to shut out the vision of an empty sky with cold, hard buildings and nothing that could mean anything to him.

He had witnessed the demise of more than a few jumpers and he knew what he would look like when they scraped him off the concrete. His bone's would liquefy and his head would explode with the slightest contact.

Damn his job.

The wind parted his hair and ruffled his standard issue cop uniform. He could never get used to wearing a suit and a tie into work, even thought the Commissioner's job required it.

He could _feel_ the ground getting closer, the impact growing in his gut and he tried to organize his thoughts. What would his last moment on this world mean? What could he think to make it all meaningful?

_Barbara._

He closed his eyes. And the breath left his body in a whoosh, his lungs aching and his ribs screaming.

_Is this what dying feels like?_

* * *

The Joker sat at the Wayne family table sipping slightly cold tea and nibbling on a pastry that had been set out for guests. In one hand was a gun and his fingers were relaxed and careless on the trigger, two grimy shoes were propped up on polished wood and his lank hair was leaving grease marks on the cloth covered chair.

Alfred's gaze was fixed on the peacock feather that was slowly waving in the air. The point of the gun was aimed directly at his stomach, but he didn't show any fear of the weapon.

Not that the Joker cared much. The butler's indifference was interesting and a little annoying but the end result was the same if he pulled the trigger.

He liked his fingers impatiently, took his feet off the table and leaned forward. The gun moving up to Alfred's face. "How long can one interview take?"

Alfred's eyes moved down and fixed on the Joker's face impassively. "Depends on how attractive the interviewer is."

The Joker shifted his position to slouch, his hand cupping his chin as he stared at the butler. "That's funny." He said flatly.

Alfred nodded gravely, not moving his eyes from the Joker's face.

"Did you hear the one about the butler and the millionaire?"

There was no answer.

"Its a long enjoyable story and it ends with the Butler being turned inside out and the cops pulling the millionaire out of three separate dumpsters around the city."

"A true American sense of humor." Alfred said distastefully

The Joker paused and squinted at him. "I like you."

* * *

_The city was burning and Bruce had no blood left with which to suppress the flames. He ached and the pain was to much to bear. The comfortable numbness that he had come to rely on was wearing off. His brain was beating against his skull and his hunger was corroding his stomach. Every joint ached with no relief. In the distance was an ambulance siren. It blared on and on and he couldn't shake the sound from his mind. It slid past his sleep and he became awfully, horrible _aware.

The dawn was breaking through the window and filtering onto his bed. Silver machinery had been crowded around his bed. There were various beeps and squeaks from the technology as it sensed his alertness.

Bruce sat up, or got as far as he could before he was stopped by the wires that connnected him to the screens and tubes. Complicated strings of cords wound around each other in braids and spirals, Fox's work.

_What had happened?_

There was a whole new level of pain registering on this body. Tiny spikes of twitching nerves centered on his chest and legs. Each one of his fingers popped as he moved it. Something bad had happened...

He looked down, a thick square of gauze was wrapped around his shoulder and chest, it felt like a gun-shot wound. Had he been shot?

_Gordon._

Gordon? Of course. The plan...thing.

Had that really worked?

A low murmur of voices was coming from the hall. Bruce pulled off the wires and tubes and swung his feet over the side of the cot. He was wearing blue hospital pajamas and little else. He needed some real clothes.

There were familiar voices, it sounded like they were in the dining room. He stepped out into the hall and made his way gingerly into his own bedroom. The overwhelming scent of home overtook him. This was one of the only rooms in the house that he actually frequented. The mansion had been rebuilt over the summer and there was still that new-space look that came with starch white walls and recently polished wood but the basic shape was the same as it had been in his childhood.

The view out the window was of the street, most of the other guest bedrooms had the landscape of the endless gardens but Bruce had always preferred the attic room with the skyscrapers of Gotham in the distance. You could almost smell the greasy hot-dog stands if you thought hard enough.

The wardrobe had been replaced and refurbished. Suits of the same size ranged from black to white and all the colors of gray in between. Bruce Wayne was a stylish man. A playboy who knew how to lok god and look care of those looks.

But a Bruce who had just woken up from a coma with a bullet wound close to his heart and only the previous night had been thrown off a sixteen story building carefully worked himself into a blue silk shirt and a pair of black dress pants.

His eyes still hurt and he decided on a pair of dark sunglasses to mask a bruised eye and cheek. Let the visitor think he had a hangover. He hurt to much to put make-up on.

There was a cane in the closet as well, his father's from when Wayne Sr. had broken a leg. Bruce took that to. He could be trying to set a new style or whatever story Alfred could manage to cook up before the visitor could ask.

The hall was bright, Batman had to deal with the night, Bruce Wayne didn't need another ounce of darkness in his life.

The stairs were intimidating. They were long and steep and quite frankly just the fact that they were _stairs_ made them unappetizing.

"Alfred?" He'd let his guardian know he was awake and greet the visitor and then he'd go back to be. After all his old friend had to be worried sick about him. The noise came out strangled and hoarse but he tried again, this time with a little more success. The voices stopped. Silence echoed throughout the house.

"Alfred?" Bruce called louder, curious now. Whatever was going on it didn't seem like any other social visit. "Alfred, is everything Okay?"

Maybe he should have called over the intercom.

"Master Wayne, you seem to have a visitor, And Mr. Jezebel is calling for his appointment later this evening."

Bruce ducked under the stairs. Jezebel was the code word that had been thought up by Alfred, a threat was in the house.

"But he's got no idea that you've got the mask he ordered."

That was new. Did the intruder not know that Bruce Wayne was Batman or was Alfred stalling for something?

Bruce crouched on the stairs, undecided on a course of action when a snide, overwhelmingly familiar voice reached him.

"Mr. Wayne. I really would like to talk to you sometime and I'm sure that your butler has pressed some sort of panic button or said something to tell you to go lock yourself up in a small room where I'm sure nobody could ever find you, but I think it's time we met face to face and had some sort of introduction. I would like to apologize for my behavior at your party. You might not remember the incident but I do feel quite sore about the whole thing."

"Joker?" Bruce straightened, the Joker didn't know he was Batman and he had a reason for coming to the manor.

"Oh, so you've heard of me? Only good thinks I hope?" The Joker stepped into the hall, even dirtier and more unkempt than Bruce had ever seen him. At gun point stood Alfred, his hands on his head. But there was relief on the old butler's face as he gazed up at his charge.

"Not as much as you would like. Is there something I can help you with? Is it money you want?"

The Joker shook his head and his purple hat slipped further over his eyes, a peacock feather waving crazily over his head. "No. Not at this point, I might need it later of course but for now, lets just talk."

* * *

_Ja neka le metio je nekan sol. Pont ontre neka sel je fra ne intentio Quel nesepa trele Dua. Degeni en frequen neka hal ja intentio. _

_~take care_

_REVIEW GODDAMMIT!!!!!  
_


	14. Breaking Barriers

_Well, as it's a beautiful Thursday, I think I'll stay in my dark room and live on the Internet. I'm telling you people, one of these days sunlight is going to slip through my window and all that's going to be left of me is a pile of blackened ashes in front of my computer. I'm looking a lot like Gollum at the moment and I think JTHM is living in my house, (My brother's music). Anyway, we are almost ready to wrap up this story. Just a few more chapters at the absolute maximum I'm thinking five more updates. _

_Enjoy!_

_(Still pissed about the chocolate cake.)_

* * *

_That hurt._ _It was the first thought on his mind and it was really the only thing that mattered at that moment. Broken ribs, definitely a broken arm, and... Oh god, he couldn't move his legs, he could barely even breathe._

"Jesus Christ!"

_Hysterical. High pitched male, couldn't be more than seventeen._

Gordon's hands and neck were brushing against something rough and itchy. Everything smelled like sweat and burnt rubber, dust and headaches.

"Calm down dammit."

_Rougher tone, older male, experienced and criminal with a whine that suggested petty thug, small time crook for hire._

_What's my name?_

"People don't just fall through the roof. Oh God, what are we gonna do?

_Hysterical voices were not the best thing at that moment, headache. Brain on a pogo stick. Jumping up and down, pounding into skull._

"Shut up someone's gonna-"

"We gotta call someone. Jesus is he still alive?"

_Am I still alive? I don't feel alive. I'm a zombie. I'm... __Gordon._

_**Batman, Joker, Hospital. Heights, flying.**_

"Yes, Fuckface he's just dazed."

"....Really?"

"Are you five years old? Of course he's dead."

"Oh, god, we gotta call the police."

_I am the police._

"That's your brilliant plan? Jesus man, that's fuckin' genius. Why don't we call the fuckin' police."

"We're just gonna leave him here?"

"He's dead, an if you wanna join him you're welcome to-"

_A toe moved, I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm alive! Oh, even thinking hurts._

"Is he moving?"

"Let's just get the fuck outta here, we can probably make it out of the city before nightfall. This place is gonna be crawling with cops and whose gonna get blamed for that?"

"Would you shut up, I just saw his hand move."

"Look, even the pile wouldn't stop that kinda drop, he's probably got a broken neck at least, now get your ass out of here. I'm gonna get rid of the evidence."

_What? Where am I? Evidence? Pile?_

"What?" Asked the second man, momentarily distracted.

"Remember what Stags told us? We gotta destroy everything. Someone saw that guy crash through the roof and we gotta fix it. Do I really have to explain this to you?"

_I have to move._

_But it's so easy to lie here..._

"But-"

"Get the fuck outta here before I shoot you myself."

There was something important that Gordon had to do, something that nagged on his aching head.

_Bruce._

Gordon groaned and opened his eyes. Above him was a dimly lit roof and a hole where he could see the Gotham clouds, slightly cross-hatched by his glass-less eyes. He took a shallow breath and made a weak flopping movement with his wrist.

"Mike..."

"What is it now?" The voice was further away, and Gordon's eyes rolled in their sockets, tiny black lights were sparkling on the ceiling of the warehouse.

"Mike, he's breathing." The voice was now terrified, the hysteria turned into a morbid panic.

There were heavy footsteps and Gordon hitched his breath enough to let out a light, splintering cough. Little shooting pains spread through his ribs and throat rooting themselves in his face.

"Well I'll be damned..."

Gordon slowly turned his good arm down, feeling the surface it was lying on. His brain was slowly starting to wake up and it _hurt._ Blood was leeching slowly back into motion, putting pins and needles everywhere.

Cotton. Furry cotton, not unlike sheepskin.

Something hard poked him in the shoulder. Groaning he pushed himself upward with his good arm, letting out a whimper of pain as every movement aggravated his ribs.

Disorienting shadows leaped everywhere and a fuzzy blot of pinkish white was ten feet in front of him. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the information that was passing through his whirling head. _There's someone standing in front of me._

_My head hurts_.

His glasses were gone, lost on the train most probably. But he could still make out what he had landed on.

Fuzzy stuffed animals of an indeterminable shape, bunnies bears but they'd been gutted, each had a gaping hole with cotton guts spilling out in a macabre version of child's surgery.

And grit under his fingers, he had been a cop long enough to smell the bad drugs. And this was a fucking mine of cocaine. They had smuggled the drug in the animals' stomach like Crane's fear toxin.

_Of all the places to land..._

* * *

_Short chapter but what the hell_

_So... Yeah... Not as great as it could have been but I love Gordon too much to kill him. I debated for a while though, and I still think it would have been a wise choice to splat his head across Gotham streets, just for dramatic effect. That sounds evil but I dunno, the story might have had more closure. (I'm going to make some pretty final decisions by the end of this but I don't think I'll kill Gordon off this time. Plus I still need him for the next three or so chapters (GOD! Does this Story Never END???!!!!)_


	15. I'm Home

**_Well, it's been... what? A year? Anyway, I'm posting a lot so that'll probably keep you occupied if you read any of my other stuff. So... where were we? Ah... yes._**

_

* * *

  
_

Bruce was tensed for action. Every fiber of his being was telling him to roll to the floor and kick the gun out of his intruders hand, even as he shifted his weight to execute the movement the Joker spoke up.

"I hear that showers are coming our way."

Bruce settled back into his seat, propping his feet up on a stool to mask his earlier movement. "Are we really going to talk about the weather or are you going to tell me why you're here?"

The door swung inward to admit Alfred, balancing the tea tray with one hand while closing the door with the other. The gun slid to face the butler as he placed the delicate cups on the coffee table. "You're a business man Bruce, May I call you Bruce?" The Joker didn't pause for an answer, "Good, I think this is the start of a great friendship."

Bruce nearly gagged but the Joker didn't seem to notice.

"And you are successful, and as a successful business man you probably have people who take care of things by using their people who take care of these same things by using their very own people and so on and on to poor little fat John who squeezes into a five by five cubicle every morning to solve the problems of every Janet and Jake in Gotham's booming Wayne enterprises."

Alfred poured tea into Bruce's cup as The Joker inspected the bottle of coke-a-cola that had been placed next to him. Smiling in satisfaction at finding the seal intact, the Joker popped the lid off. And poured a little of the brownish liquid into his china cup.

"So why not go to any of the board members? If it's business you want to talk about, I'm the least qualified to deal with-"

Bruce jumped as the gun went off. "I wasn't finished, did I sound finished?"

Suddenly Bruce felt very vulnerable, there was no mask between him and his enemy. No armor to stop that bullet, chip in his ear to help him hear the advice of Fox or Alfred. He might not come out of this encounter in one piece. And here was the Joker with a gun, since when did the clown use a gun? He was painfully aware o his condition, the broken ribs, the bullet wound, and the pounding headache which was building up it's forces behind Bruce's eyes.

"Don't interrupt me again.

* * *

Gordon was pushed to his knees, in fact he wasn't pushed so much as dropped, he didn't think he could walk if he wanted to. In front of him a small brown bear looked soulfully up at him, it's black button eyes gleaming with the florescent white light from above. It's guts lay strewn around it, mixing with the dust from the floor.

"Hey... Mike I know who this guy is." Gordon looked up at the teenager who had spoken. He was skinny, probably weighed less than the firearm he was holding. "We are so screwed."

"Why, Who is it?" Mike was older, his age hard to guess from the scars that criss-crossed his face like a tic-tac-toe board. It was almost fascinating in its ugliness.

"You ain't gonna believe it." The kids gun was shaking, not a good sign when it was pointed at Gordons head.

"Why? Who the hell is it?" Mike stepped forward to peer into his prisoners face. "I don't know him."

"It's the commissioner. You know, the police chief's boss? We're screwed, we are so screwed."

Mike peered closer, and Gordon's nose screwed up to keep the man's breathe out of his body. He was nearly gagging from pain anyway.

"Holy shit! You're right! That's Commissioner Gordon! We've gone and caught ourselves Commissioner Gordon!" Mike laughed and his voice echoed across the high ceiling. Gordon closed his eyes, he had been recognized. There was no hope now, none at all. They were going to shoot him and he would lie like Teddy, bleeding slowly onto the cement floor and then tossed into the closest body of water.

There was a click and Gordon squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

_ Please not the face, don't do that to my wife. Just let me be identifiable._

The light was blocked out and Gordon could hear a crunch ad teddy was stepped on, the tiny black eyes had probably cracked.

A warm hand met his shoulder and James opened his eyes with a start to see Mike's unlovely face so close to his own. "You are a true hero, sir."

Speechless, the commissioner looked up at the thug.

"What are you doing Mike, what the hell? Are you a cop? Shit, is this a set up?" The teenager had backed up, swinging his gun around at imaginary cops lurking in wait.

"Shut up Jesse. This man has done the city a great favor today." Mike pulled Gordon to his feet. "I want you to meet the man who killed Batman."

Gordon almost fell to his knees again.

Jesse seemed to be more confused than ever. "He killed Batman?"

"He's the reason we still got jobs tonight. Why do you think the shipment is being moved so soon? It's cause we got no Bat signal in the sky, no shadows but us on the streets. And it's all thanks to you." There was something like hero worship in Mike's eyes.

Jesse had lowered his weapon too. "So.. he's on our side now?"

"Probably always was, he's a cop from the old days. You was probably just playing good to get close to the flying rat right?"

"Ah..." Gordon looked up at the two guns which at any second could be pointed at him. "Yeah, I... I killed Batman."

"C'mon Jesse, the toys can guard themselves, this man needs a drink on me."

* * *

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**_I wonder if anybody even remember this story..._**


	16. Hopeless?

_Well it's a bit longer than I thought it would be. I couldn't get to writing as soon as I would have liked, I was just getting settled down. But, the important part is that I'm trying... Anyway, any reviews would go to the starving muse association._

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They had moved through the upper levels of the mansion to the study of Bruce's father. Bruce's mind itched incessantly, every thought turning to cold calculation as the Joker neared the secrets that he had tried for so long to keep. Every ornament in the house had a trace leading back to Batman, Alfred and Fox's joke. Bats were carved into the staircase, behind the desk that Bruce used were wings so that when he sat down they seemed to be growing out of his back. Bat wings.

What once seemed like a harmless joke now was looking more and more like a threat to his security. He had gotten too smug in his disguise, too like the man he was portraying to the outside world.

Bruce winced as the Joker ran a wandering hand over the books that if pushed would reveal a secret stash of weapons including the throwing knives that were his trade mark.

"You know, Brucey-Boy," The clown paused his wandering hand on a leather bound book, _Seduction of the Innocent._ "A lot has changed in the past twenty four hours."

"You mean with Batman's death." The clown turned to face the billionaire. Exasperated he flung his hand up towards the ceiling.

"What is with you people? Batsy's dead. Batman isn't. Do you really think that you can kill Batman? That it's going to die with a bullet? You only see the flashes, you don't _understand._ Like flies by a puddle you notice nothing but the effects of one another-" The Joker stopped his monologue and stared at Bruce. For a moment Bruce thought that the Joker had guessed, there was a glint in those mad eyes, a glint that Bruce had never seen before.

"You're not afraid of me Mr. Wayne. Now why is that?" And then the Joker was close, far closer that Batman liked.

_I am Batman._

The realization hit him hard. Harder than any blow that he had ever been dealt. Those eyes, he knew them almost like he knew his own, the malicious brown surrounded by red tinged white. The makeup that clung to every sense without being touched. And he staggered away from the Joker, the heavy sunglasses that masked his bruised eyes fell away and he suddenly found himself gagging over the wastebasket by the side of his desk.

He was Batman, no diplomat between good and evil. A soldier, a symbol to the people, an inspiration and a warning. He was tired of waiting for the Joker to tell him what he wanted, tired of the talk and the loops and turns of the Jokers mindless games, tired of keeping the delicate balance between Bruce Wayne and Batman.

He looked up at the clown and anger surged through him in an unstoppable tide and he could almost feel the his throat rip with the shout that came from somewhere deep within him. "What do you _want_?"

Now leaning against a wall, the Joker didn't immediately answer, the gun had disappeared somewhere, not that Bruce cared. The Joker wouldn't use a gun to kill him unless he was really pressed for time. Peeling himself away from the bookcases, the Joker tipped himself sideways to look at Bruce from a new angle.

"You don't look so good, Bruce."

Bruce pushed himself away from the Joker and the oily, imaginary hands that were approaching from all sides, holding knives and mirrors. "Don't! Don't... touch me."

He closed his eyes and willed the hallucinations away. But when he opened them, four Jokers were morphing together, each grinning with sharp black teeth dripping with dark red makeup.

"What did... where- what did you do to me?" The world was slanting and dimly he could feel his shoulder hit something hard and sharp that fell with him. The floor was cold and comfortable. An ice pack on his bruised body which had been pushed past every endurance.

* * *

It didn't take a genius to become a thug. But it took more than muscle to stay in the criminal world. Gordon had always prided himself on being an honest man, even in the days before batman and all that had happened in the days when you joined the police force to get a gun, he had swayed to the unlawful side.

And now he was the toast of Gotham's underworld, they had all but raised him on their shoulders and held a parade. As soon as 'Mike';had learned his name, he had been shoved through doors and bars as the 'batkiller'.

He wondered briefly if he should be taking these addresses, he had seen more than enough to put these people away for life. They had offered everything from cocaine and whores to maids who would clean his house every two weeks.

In fact, Mike had had a doctor take a look at Gordon's ribs.

But even through the celebration and the kindness that was surely meant well, Gordon tried to break away. But every time he had gone five steps they called him back, weapons glinting nonchalantly at their sides to tell them once again how he had killed Batman.

Every time he heard it or told it he almost had to believe it. His mind was deterioration night after night sleepless and alone, knowing that if he went home he would be hunted down without mercy.

And that is how he came to be with Mike and Jesse, his worshiping captors dead drunk and singing about his exploits.

Jesse wasn't actually a bad kid. Just failed too many math tests, got hit too many times, and just felt that a life of crime would get him farther than an education in whatever he could pass in high school. And Mike, well mike was strange. Gordon certainly wouldn't have him home for dinner, but the man had an outlook on life that Gordon could understand if not respect. Life in Gotham was hard, hard enough to warrant finding jobs wherever you could. But there were more honorable ways to find an income. And the uncomfortable tug of a job that needed doing was just about wrenching his heart out. The Joker was out there, Bruce was out there, both were a potent mix to the trouble brewing in Gotham, the city of criminals who were now freed from Batman's restraints.

_It's going to be a long night_

Damn right. The fate of the city rested on Batman's shoulders and Batman was no where to be found, rumor was that the Joker had disappeared off the map too. From what Gordon had seen tonight the gangs were arming up. They were going to take to the streets tonight and they were going to fight for the territories. Fear was mixed with elation. They had all been held in check for so long that they had had plenty of time to plan their take over. The Gotham police force stood a slim to none chance of putting down the criminal element tonights.

It was a nightmare, all of it. In fact if he was any other person, any other cop, he would have just drunk himself into oblivion with Mike and Jesse and holed up in the nearest safe building. He had to get to Bruce, had to protect him, because if Batman protected everyone, the Gordon would do his damn oath justice, even if that oath had been under a drunken slob who couldn't remember his lines, Gordon would protect the guardian in weakness.

Some things are meant to matter.

And Gordon would do anything to keep Gotham from collapsing,he was too stubborn to let that happen.

_It's going to be a long night._

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	17. Questions asked

_I think it's time you were caught up on the Joker/Batman/Gordon situation. I hope a lot of questions will be answered and even more will be asked (evil grin)._

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The Joker leaned his forehead against the side of the speeding train and listened to Gordon's scream disappearing behind onto the streets of Gotham. Humming a few toneless bars he turned his attention to the cops inside.

Times had changed, Gotham citizens were baring their windows, locking their doors and every minute he wasted with the Commissioner, dozens of people were escaping to the country. He couldn't have that.

According to the muffled voices in the train, Gotham was going to hell in a hand basket, as far as the gangs and police were concerned, Batman was dead and the Joker was missing, all bets were off. Even in the dim blue light of a coming storm, Gotham's streets were alive with light and sound, it really was a beautiful city. Building sped past in odd, unorganized clumps.

The Joker's humming turned to whistling 'Happy Birthday'. It had never been about the killing, not really. Of course people had there uses, especially dead people, most of the time they were more use alive than dead.

But Batsy, Batsy was dead while alive, he was as caught up in saving the world as the Joker was in destroying it. He couldn't be bought or sold, that was really why Rachel Dawes had to go. Batman would have died for her, leave the mantle by the umbrellas and pursue an ordinary existence for a person, a person just like the rest of the rats. Batman and man couldn't coexist, he had to leave all other identity, become no one else but the Batman. Without Dawes, he was free to be just that. The Joker wouldn't share him with anyone else.

And now he had his chance, the police on the train had told him everything. The gangs were arming and he needed the one thing that they didn't and couldn't have.

He looked at the large Gothic 'W' impressed onto the door which he was now clinging to.

He needed to talk to Wayne. But first he needed supplies, he needed a troupe, he needed to kill someone, and he really, really needed a hat.

* * *

The street thugs were arming themselves. He had just been introduced to most of the 'Cobblepot' gang who were arming themselves to the teeth for the coming fight over the streets. Before Batman, the city had been carved up by the gangsters, territories had been set out among the narrows and through the lower apartments to criminal alley.

And they had owned the cops. Apparently that was why they were so eager to see Gordon. In the new age, the cops had to be bought quickly, and who better to start with than the commissioner?

He needed to get away. He had to see Bruce, warn him that Gotham was off it's short leash and that the Joker was planning something big, really big for tonight. Fireworks were going off in the narrows and he was a long way away from Wayne manor, where he was pretty sure he was going. Alfred Pennyworth was at Wayne manor, and he could answer a whole lot of questions about the young playboy/vigilante.

It was still odd to think of Batman and Bruce Wayne in the same sentence, or even the same book.

He looked around at the small time criminal muscle that surrounded him. Jesse was in the corner, clutching the shotgun that had been thrust to him. The gun was almost bigger than he was. Blood was going to run in the streets, and Jesse had the face that was in the local newspaper in the morning, a two paragraph story written about the tragic death of a high school age kid and the decline of youth.

One day his sons would be that age. Gordon clutched at his temples and tried to clear the image of his sons out of his head. A large hand slapped him on the back, and he turned to face Mike's concerned face. Street filth, concerned about his welfare. Gordon wanted to laugh, wanted to sob until he passed out. He was trapped by his own survival, if only he had hit the street when the Joker had thrust him off the air rail.

No, he mustn't think like that.

Mike was trying to say something but his words were lost in the loud music and the drunken revelry. Gordon shook his head and shouted that he needed to get some air. Mike had Jesse follow him. The two slammed through the crowd starting to gather at the bar where the weapons were being handed out.

The bar doors slammed out wards and finally he could breathe in smokeless air. The noise inside the bar receded a little as the doors closed. Jesse looked at him questioningly. The commissioner turned to walk away from the bar, the young man stopped him, "Hey, where are you going?"

He was suspicious, a little smarter than the older scum in the pub. Gordon knew he wouldn't last the night, not under the direction of those idiots. "I'm just stretching my legs."

Jesse followed his suspiciously, his whole body trembling under the steady shotgun that was swiveling around with his twitching eyes. Gordon would have laughed, but for the very obvious danger of being shot.

Turning to face his young captor, Gordon started to pat himself down, "Hey, you have a smoke?" Jesse reached inside his jacket and Gordon pounced. The newly stitched up wound that he had received from the Joker in hospital ripped sharply, but he wrestled the gun away from Jesse.

The boy lay on his back, hands held in front of his chest to try and protect himself. He hadn't screamed, which wouldn't have been a problem anyway with his gang going half-deaf inside McGinty's tavern.

"Don't shoot me." The half whisper tore at Gordon. This was just a kid. A kid with everything to lose in this life. The shotgun remained steady but he was trembling inside. He couldn't kill the boy.

"Go home. Go home and lock your doors."

Jesse started to scrambled up, but Gordon stopped him, kneeling on the ground and pulled the packet of cigarettes out of the inside pocket of his jacket. "And quit smoking, you're too young."

Jesse got to his feet and ran up the street away from both Gordon and the noisy pub.

Gordon quickly followed.

* * *

The Joker had followed up on his quest for supplies, he got the much needed hat from one of the obliging officers that had been on the train. He hadn't killed them, they would carry the message back to whatever master they heeled to. The Joker was back. The Joker was ready, and the Joker was going to take the city.

The gangs were scared of him, as they should be. He was the most powerful on the streets. No one had his funds, or more importantly, the fear that he generated on the streets. But that wasn't enough, there would be a few who challenged his throne, and he had an idea. A sane idea.

Oh, how he did like irony.

But most of his hired thugs had died or joined other organizations when he had been sent to Arkham. He had taken back what was his, and what had formerly been the diamond back's territory had been relabeled to something more befitting the Joker's territory. He had picked up the fallen peacock feather that had been on display at Diamond's house and carefully folded it into his hat.

And now to Wayne manor.

He had urgent business with Bruce Wayne.

* * *

_So yeah, it's going to be hard to get back into writing this, so please be kind. I think I may re-write this when I once again get the hang of Batman, Gordon, and my beloved Joker._

_And now, because I like writing review pleas, (and that one guy who didn't like them can go live in a dumpster where he can rot without reviews.)_

Famous movie quotes

Frankly my dear, do you give a damn?

_Hasta su respuesto, _baby.

I've written things you people wouldn't believe. The Joker on fire off the shoulder of the courthouse. I documented batbeams glittering in the dark near the Wayne Tower. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to review.

My mother always said writing a story is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get back.

Get busy readin', or get busy reviewin'.

I'll be back.


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